Hacker News Reader

Comment by Encosia | Hacker News Reader

There's no need to be like that. I own multiple Android devices myself.

Just the fact that so many Android devices have been sold isn't very convincing. Lots of MySpace accounts were opened and lots of RIM devices were sold in years past too.

Android is free. If it doesn't drive revenue to Google through over avenues, it's not sustainable, and the only revenue stream Google excels at is advertising. Sure, there's Play, but a) Apple has stated that their 30% is just barely above break even; so even taking a cut of paid apps is probably not enough to sustain an entire platform and b) Android users overall are well known not to be very spendy when it comes to apps. If Android isn't a successful advertising vector for Google in the long run, I think you have to seriously question how secure its future will be.

View on HN

How much money do you think Google should make to be profitable with Android?

Let's say it costs them $50m a year. Google could make that money of the 10% of the Android user base.

Looking at your comments, it smacks of elitism. (i.e. lots of Android users are poor while iOS users have money...)

I'm not sure how it's elitism to point out that the specific demographic you mentioned is not one that lends itself to Google's central business. Like I very specifically said, I personally think it's great as a developer who benefits from more WebKit browsers in the world. I also understand that Google isn't in this market to be philanthropic either.

Well, it's inaccurate to start with. The hair brained notion that people are only forced into Android, they don't choose it.

Also, you'd do well to read about why they were so passionate about Android, about putting money into it and having it be open source.

I literally don't know how to respond to this: If Android isn't a successful advertising vector for Google in the long run, I think you have to seriously question how secure its future will be.

Most because I just don't know where to even start. You seem to think that because Google is good at advertising, they have to put ads on Android or something for it to be a worthwhile cause to them?

A product activating a million units a day is going to shut down? Hell, they could lose money on Android and they'd fund it just to fight Apple.

I don't understand where you're getting that I said people are only forced into Android? Frankly, I don't understand why you seem so hostile in general, throwing out things like:

> Also, did you honestly think that Android just randomly shows ads or something?

> The hair brained notion that people are only forced into Android, they don't choose it.

To be clear, I develop primarily for the web so I'm not very invested in any of these platforms. You seem to think I'm anti-Android or pro-iOS (or whatever). Given the choice between Android or nothing, I wish people would buy Android devices and then actually use them to browse the web so that more of my users would be using WebKit! That doesn't seem to actually be happening though. The latest StatCounter numbers show Android's actual usage in North America at ~10% less and falling away from iOS slightly, even though there are so many Android devices.

The Wave team was passionate about Wave too. That's great, but passion (alone) doesn't pay the bills. I hate to be overly cynical, but Google's own track record speaks for itself quite clearly when it comes to products that don't contribute enough to the bottom line. Just off the top of my head, I can think of two popular Google services that I use daily which have stagnated due to lack of active development when Google decided they weren't worth focusing on.

Of course I don't think Android would be "shut down" overnight. What does that even mean? I do think that Android must remain important enough to Google that it's very actively developed and keeps pace with iOS and other mobile operating systems though. Otherwise, it would quickly fall by the wayside like Netscape, MySpace, or BlackBerry.

new smarthphone works works as a substitute of buying new car or moving to new house, so it's not like iOS users have more money

Reply on news.ycombinator.com